Things Have Been Tougher Than We Anticipated – Dowie

Written by Dr. Ed Harrison

1:11pm Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Commented 22 times

Newcastle United assistant manager, Iain Dowie, has admitted this morning that both he and Alan Shearer have been surprised by just how difficult things have been at Newcastle United, since their appointment on April Fool’s day.

Iain Dowie – things have been more difficult than we expected

Certainly just 2 points from Shearer’s first 5 games in charge and a single goal, is not what most Newcastle fans were hoping for, when Alan and Iain took over the club 27 days ago, with 8 games to go.

But that’s what’s happened to Newcastle, and we’ve gone from bad to worse, with 3 defeats and just a couple of draws.

The club is now perilously close to relegation, and still a full 3 points from safety, with a mere 9 points to play for. When you consider we’ve taken 4 points from the last 30 available, that doesn’t give us a lot of hope in our last 3 games of the season.

And most of our injured players have now returned, so we would have expected an uptick in form and an increase in the flow of both openings and goals from the side, but that hasn’t happened – unfortunately. And that’s wuith Viduka, Owen and Martins now in the side.

Iain Dowie said today:

“Things have been a bit tougher than maybe we anticipated. It is a bigger job than we thought – but then this is a much bigger club that I expected,”

“But it’s not an impossible job. Me and Alan are both positive people and have to remain positive. The players are looking to Alan for leadership and he’s been a leader.”

Exactly why the task has been much more difficult for Iain and Alan than they had expected, we have no idea.

But we don’t have long to save ourselves this season, and if we are going to do that, we have to win the game against Middlesbrough on Monday night.

Failure to do that and failure to score some goals in that game, like we failed to do against Portsmouth, even with the several chances we had, will in all likelihood condemn Newcastle to the Championship next season.

And that would be no less than a huge tragedy for this once proud club.

Howay Doway! Harder than you expected? Owen, Butt, Smith and a few others have been saying that all season. They need to pull their fingers out – you and Al need to put your fingers in! Sort out Boro for three points.

Just read an article that has Shearer staying on regardless of which division we play in, which I thought would be the case. You dont get the choice of managing your home town club too often to turn it down. What was more interesting was what was claimed, that in fact Shearer will have the responsibilities that were denied to other managers, that is let me run the club and have the responsibility for who goes and who I want to bring in. The available mentioned funds were 15m. and whatever could be raised from a massive cull. Some of those mentioned were Owen, Cacapa, Geremi, Smith, Viduka ,Ameobi, Duff,Enrique,and I expect Joey the sociopath. plus Martins. Those being considered as transfer targets are Elano and Johnson, Huddlestone, also defenders Naughton and Fox, Kris Commons, Knightly, Cox, Morrison and Nani who is believed to want away from M/Utd. not making the grade and being replaced by Anderson. A pretty decent group to chose from. Hopefully Al can do a decent job rebuilding and bring about a sense of stability. I am sure he can sell the club to some of those mentioned players and bring back the exitement and winning attitude that this club badly needs.

The one player missing on the above possible aquisition list is a tough tackling defensive midfielder, Huddlestone ? I think not ! Mbia, think so, but would`nt be cheap, Veloso ? probably out of reach both price wise and would want a club challenging for europe. Guess we will have to let Al. decide, better him than Llambias or Ashley, even Wise.

Ed: “and we’ve gone from bad to worse, with 3 defeats and just a couple of draws”.

It seems the words have escaped even the master propagandist Ed’s lips. Rather his finger tips.

From this Ed you have tacitly admitted what I have been arguing since Shearer took over and that is Under Joe Kinnear we were better.

What I cannot argue and indeed agree with most of you is that there is spirit in team and whatever intangible, immeasurable attributes you can come up with for which to give Shearer credit for example: Bite, grit, heart, passion, fight, and whatever else advocates of Shearer’s managerial abilities.

Will you agree with me, that he has failed to deliver the tangibles i.e. results, tactics and organisation.

Also, I spoke of how conceited Shearer was in his own abilities to come a take on a job for which he is not fit. Now before the knives come out, this evidence is on what I base my argument.

Dowie: “Things have been a bit tougher than maybe we anticipated. It is a bigger job than we thought ” From this we can deduce that, things were hard under Kinnear there is no denying this we can all agree. They(Shearer & Dowie) thought they were coming in no qualifications or anything for Shearer and were going to do a better job. What did they Think Souness was doing here, Reoder, Allerdyce, Kinnear? Just what did they think these men were doing? Their assumption was how hard can it be?

Mate you have very valid points but as stardust would say the mob hounded all of the above out! At least Shearer (and KK) would recive the time it takes to turn things around. hopefully. As i said in previous post could it reallyget worse next year if AS is in chare when we are 3 games from going down this year I dought if. (only if we end up in league 1 which is unthinkable) If these results were any one else we would be calling for there blood! AS is our ONLY chance of a successful future if he is give at least 5 seasons to rid us from wasters and bring players in with the attacking style we all crave for. He is not any worse than anyonewho takes on thier first job. Would you have ratherhim go like Ince do good in the lower leauges and fail in the prem? AS said when coming in for 8 games ONLY that he was asked if he did not take it and someone else saved the club would you regret it.? I would!

Whumpie: “To make your ‘hard facts’ mean anything you’d have to have JFK come back on April 1st in a parallel universe, and compare his results with Big Al’s.

I’d put good money on them being worse.”

You know remarks like that hold little water as there is no way anyone could even simulate such events. We will never know I guess is the most pragmatic response to your suggestion.

When JK came in after KK walked. We were in free fall loosing 4 games comprehensively (more so by our performance than the score lines suggested). JK then took over for Everton and steadied the ship with a series of draws and a couple of wins.

At this point fans began thinking of and shouting for Europa. They thought we were world beaters and criticised Kinnear for what they described as poor results. Kinnear was managing the same players as Shearer is now but under Kinnear a poor result was his fault and under Shearer a poor result is because of bad players. Selective blame.

I find it hard to think in the space of weeks our players have gone from good (judging from the Europa expectations from the fans) players under Kinnear to bad players under Shearer.

judging from the Europa expectations from the fans, the fans deemed our players good enough to challenge for Europa as such blamed Kinnear as the weak link.

Now Shearer is here and those same players have become the weak link and not Shearer.

It is quite remarkable how the fans do not see this selective blame.

Following the Liverpool defeat, I lead a debate on whether it was our players that were indeed poor or it was the management that was poor.

Either one of the following is almost certainly true.

1. Poor management. 2. Poor players.

I mentioned the records of our players and their experience.

Martins, Owen playing in Europe and scoring goals for both club and country also have won trophies.

Beye, Duff Butt, Smith Viduka all have played in Europe, with four of the former having won trophies and titles. All of the prior mentioned have international experience as well. They are distinguished in their own right.

Bassong is good there is no debate there.

The only one in the equation without a proven record is Shearer (Managerially) which is why I apportion blame to him for these horrid results.

If we are to sit down and debate the issue on fact, there are hard facts in favour of the players not being the ones who lack but rather that Shearer as he is the only one there without a record to abstain him from blame.

“Mate you have very valid points but as stardust would say the mob hounded all of the above out! At least Shearer (and KK) would recive the time it takes to turn things around. hopefully. ”

But that’s the biggest problem shearerbliss, hounding outsiders out of the club. Appointing Shearer will not help a great deal, the more idiotic supporters will just transfer the venom they used to have for the manager into even more venom for the players, it is happening already. We must try to solve the fundamental problem, not paper over the cracks, Shearer or no Shearer. Otherwise we will just go on in this vicious cycle forever.

Lesh “we live in hope and die in despair” Yeah, I realise it`s probably made up “paper talk “,but a little cheering up never hurts and if we dont have hope whats left ? Things have actually been worse , believe it or not.

there are no times for exscuses! we have to win against Boro. If there is one team we should be able to beat it have to be boro! if we beat them -maybe we can get some confidence and get some points against fulham and Villa too!

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health update

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in February 2017 and completed four months of chemotherapy in late July and will continue to have hormone treatment.

The cancer spread in the bones but it has been stabilized and has not spread further.

I am still recovering from some of the side effects of the chemo treatment - it's mainly severe fatigue and exhaustion.

Stage 4 cancer is not curable so I will continue to have cat scans and bone scans every four months to ensure the cancer is not spreading.

It is as it is - these things happen - and I will do my very best under the circumstances.

Ed Harrison

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